That's a pretty clever solution as a normal microscope XY stage is *very* poorly suited for such a task
The zero and mm/inch features are very useful. I'd much rather use metric than inches. For drilling enclosures and such zeroing on one corner lets me move to each point very simply and accurately. I'm going to make small dimples in the table at the limits of travel to assist in centering the work on the table properly.
I spent 9 months looking through a polarizing microscope and stepping 1000 points per thin section identifying the mineral under the crosshairs for my MS thesis. I did 54 thin sections and then recounted the first ones until I had repeatable results. In my case I didn't care where I was.
I simply stepped so many times in the X and Y directions and punched the appropriate button in a row of tabulators. Then fed the data to an ANOVA program.
I've been testing a micron mechanical dial indicator with surface plate and gauge block. I picked a 0.1001" block for convenience. In the process I put a HF 1" digital mike on it. It read 0.1001". Not as sexy as a Mitutoyu, but just as accurate and 1/5th the price. All of this is fallout from the precision required for PCB manufacture. 0.1mm/0.005" accuracy for $2? Wow!
Have Fun!
Reg
On Thursday, January 18, 2024 at 08:55:22 AM CST, Steven Greenfield AE7HD via groups.io <alienrelics@...> wrote:
On Thu, Jan 18, 2024 at 03:50 AM, Dennis Zabawa wrote:
I have used the commercial version of the device you described.? I found that the drill bit popping up in my vision caused me to actually get nauseous and dizzy so, no more using it.
As someone who gets motion sickness easily, I feel your pain.
Back to the topic of a cheap DRO: A friend of mine used cheap HF stainless digital calipers to set up someone's microscope XY table. They would saw a block in half, find a micrometeorite track in one half, then find it in the other side.
So with the digital calipers, set the XY table to the halfway point between the samples. Zero. Now if you find something at, say, 11.05mm, just spin it the other way to -11.05mm and you are at the same point in the other half of the sawn block.
I don't know how well I described that...
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Steve Greenfield AE7HD WRWU703 CN87oa??
http://www.ae7hd.com
